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Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Top 5 EPs Of 2012

I wanted to try something this year end. It seems that, while many bands release quite a few EPs in their lifetime, few EPs are truly considered the bands best work. Often times an EP is two or three new songs with some remixes, or a single with some acoustic covers and such, but there are times when an EP is truly a masterpiece for a band. Take the Zombie EP by The Devil Wears Prada, easily their best and most focused work to date. However EPs still get overshadowed by full lengths when it comes to year end lists, and I can honestly say that with the large number of full length vying for my year end list, I probably wouldn't have put an EP on there. So in order to honor some of those EPs out there, here is a top five list.

#5 - Burn Everything - Hollow Victory

This album was one of my favorite to review thus far over at Emurg. Follow this link to read the review if you want, but the album is easily one of the best chaotic hardcore releases this year. everything on this album is top notch.

#4 - Paradise In Exile - The Liberation

I found these guys thanks to a suggestion from the band Make Them Suffer, who also had a fantastic debut album this year. Paradise In Exile are crazy heavy, and crafted some fantastic debt material. The Liberation is a fantastic start for the band and should help them plant a solid first step in their music career.

#3 - In Reverence - Hallucinations

This album was a relatively recent find for me, but is one of my new favorite finds in deathcore. This band takes inspiration from all the right bands such as Whitechapel, and The Last Felony, and combines it into a wonderfully atmospheric yet brutal album. I'm really looking forward to what these guys come up with on a full length. Check out my review of the album.

#2 - Cryptopsy - Cryptopsy

Cryptospy are a band I didn't find until this year, yes I was late on the bandwagon, but better late than never. this album is almost not really an EP being that it's 8 tracks, but it's labeled as one so I'll not be arguing with that. This EP though is a solid step back in the right direction after the somewhat shaky The Unspoken King. It's Cryptopsy's return to form of solid death metal leaning towards tech death. I'm definitely excited for their next full length.

#1 - Revocation - Teratogenesis

So apparently Scion has it's foot in the film and music industry, making short films and producing albums, and generally releasing them for free. When I heard this I was assuming they'd be working with terrible top 40 artists, but apparently someone at Scion has great taste. They've worked with a number of metal artists, and have produced a few EP's now. Revocation's thus far takes the cake for me. Teratogenesis is a fantastic album. Plain and simple. It's chock full of incredibly solid writing and is a perfect in between for Chaos Of Forms and whatever else they have planned for the future. This is a very impressive set of five tracks.

Well that's this list! I'll be posting my Top 15 albums of the year list sometime before the end of December, so stay tuned for that!